Pretense in the Mirror
by flamewarflipsides
Summary: What really happened during Shadow the Hedgehog? Were any of those endings actually true? On a cold Holoskan night, Sonic the Hedgehog tells Chip the story of the Black Arms invasion, and what really happened to his other amnesiac friend. A reimagining of Shadow the Hedgehog with a surprising new ending.
1. Prologue: Holoska Night

**Prologue: Holoska**

**Author's Note**

Thank you for looking at this piece!

This is a reimagining of Shadow the Hedgehog, the 2005 Sonic platformer/shooter. It's being told with a framing tale of Sonic recounting the events to another character from Sonic Unleashed. As a result, the following Sonic games will be **spoiled:**

Sonic Adventure 2 (major)

Sonic Heroes (major)

Shadow the Hedgehog (major)

Sonic Unleashed (minor)

This story is going to contain violence comparable to that in the game itself, which had earned an E10 rating, but possibly far more disturbing in context. There is also mild sexually suggestive content in the form of Rouge the Bat and Amy Rose, but that isn't the reason this is getting an M rating.

Lastly, the first few chapters of this story will be very similar to the beginning of Shadow's game. Each chapter will deviate a little more than the previous. I would be grateful for your patience, but by no means do I expect it.

**Trigger Warning**

This story contains a number of potentially triggering things.

It includes:

* Violence, slightly more graphic than the actual game

* Attempted murder (arguably in the original game)

* Attempted suicide, relatively non-violent (NOT in the original game)

* A mental illness that is portrayed inaccurately for dramatic purposes (in addition to the one portrayed in the actual game)

* Swearing (slightly more intense than the actual game)

**Thanks** to iammemyself for her wonderful editing help and the deviantart community for their feedback!

Enjoy!

* * *

The wind whipped through the entrance of the cave, howling. Though the mossy stone provided some protection, each howl sent a cold chill through them. They huddled closer to each other, and the blue creature wrapped a stretchy arm around the maroon one protectively.

"It's so cold… What a storm!" the maroon fairy whined.

"It probably wouldn't be so bad if I hadn't gotten wet first," growled the werehog.

"You don't mind if I cuddle up in your fur, Sonic?" Chip asked, snuggling closer to the white fuzz on Sonic's chest.

"Heh. Well, at least it's good for something. I'm just glad you're not afraid of Mr. Monster Guy anymore."

Chip laughed, looking up at Sonic, his amber eyes peeking out from a rug of Sonic's fur. "How could I be afraid of you? You're like the nicest guy ever. You're so brave and you're so willing to help people… most people don't want to go help me find my memories."

"I know a guy who had some trouble with his. It was hard on him." Sonic pulled Chip a little closer with a claw. "I can't just sit by and let somebody go through that again."

The wind roared in their ears again, and Sonic shifted around, scooting so that Chip was away from the entrance to the cave.

"How did he deal with it?"

Sonic looked up at the roof of the cave. "It's a long story, buddy. Are you sure you can sit still that long?"

"Please? It'll keep my mind off that wind…"

"All right. But no interruptions. There's a lot of it that won't make sense until later."


	2. Stage One: Westopolis

**Stage 1: Westopolis**

The black hedgehog stood beneath a tree, the wind whipping at him. A discarded newspaper drifted past him on the wind, brushing the red streak on his foot, advertising the much-anticipated return of the Black Comet to Westopolis' skies.

Another haunting image played back in his mind, of a little girl running through a long corridor, past the stars outside. She turned to see a soldier and gasped. A shot rang out. He wasn't sure if he was remembering the scream that came, or if he was shouting it.

"Maria!"

Footsteps crunched in the grass behind him. "Finally remember her, Shadow?" I asked, stepping up so he could see me.

He glanced at me, an odd vulnerability in his red eyes. "Who am I? I don't remember anything except… except seeing her."

I shook my head, sighing, leaning on the tree next to him. "I've been meaning to talk to you about that. About all the stuff that's happened since the ARK. "He looked out the city, and I looked after him. "You know we saved all those people? All those people who get to run around, living their lives-"

"Being pathetic. I don't have time for this."

I sighed. Not this again. I thought we'd resolved that little problem up on the ARK, but apparently something in his brain shorted out again. I mean, more than it already had, obviously, since he couldn't remember the guy who created him, or the soldiers who shot his friend for no good reason. At least he had her name: "Maria." That was a start.

I was about to open my mouth and explain when the clouds began to swirl. We both looked up at it, jaws slack, as a vortex appeared. Something was flying out of them; even though they were far away, I could see every detail of wings and claws and giant heads. I could hear people screaming in the city… I was sure he could too.

A voice behind us interrupted our little moment, droning in this deep demonic growl, "Shadow… the day of reckoning has arrived." We turned to face the source of it, which floated before us. It was big, with brown, almost black skin. Two horns with red tips stuck out the side of its head, and it glared down at us with three red eyes. Its tiny head was attached to oversized, armored shoulders. Over that, it wore this big necklace with stars and moons all over. The whole thing gave me the creeps, like it was something out a movie about devil worshippers or something. I mean, at least Dark Gaia creatures are cute. But I think what was creepiest about it was its colors: Black with red tips and red eyes. Just like a chao. Just like Shadow. Anyway, it ordered in that weird, purring voice, "Bring me the chaos emeralds, as promised."

Shadow bared his teeth as he raised his eyebrow "How did you know my name? What are you talking about?"

I had to admit, I was with him there. People couldn't usually tell Shad and me apart back then, except Rouge and unfortunately Eggman. They were even a little confused at first.

Still, before he could get an answer, the figure disappeared, and this freaky little purple starfish behind it flew off into the city. Something nearby exploded, making Shadow shake a little on his feet. He turned to me, frowning, as if I could somehow explain what he meant. I understood a lot more of what was happening than he did, but that guy was new to me.

"What the hell was that all about?"

"I dunno. He called you by name, not me."

"He clearly knows who I am. I have no choice but to believe him."

I silently prepared myself to try and slap some sense into him. I opened my mouth to protest, but he kept going like I wasn't there.

"I've got to get those chaos emeralds."

Or you could, you know, ask me. Not the sharpest hog in the hedge, there. He ran off ahead of me, and I did my best to keep up.

By the time I reached the city, I was finding people down everywhere. Mostly soldiers, which I thought was pretty funny, because Westopolis isn't exactly a military stronghold. I hadn't really hung out there much, though I'd seen a couple concerts down town and I had to admit the roads there were pretty cool. When I could find 'em without cars, I'd run on the freeways, but the side roads were cool, too. Everything in the city came at each other at funny angles. You could tell there was a plan to the whole city, but then a road jumped out at you that made you think maybe the plan changed. I was out of time to think about the roads, though. All these downed soldiers… and curiously, most of 'em were alive. It was almost like something had almost killed them, but stopped just before the point of no return.

I couldn't help them, not really. Wiggle your toes. Does your neck or back hurt? Ok, I'm going to roll you on your side. That's safer. No man, I can't carry you, you're twice my size. Can you walk? Here, I'll help you get out of the sun, if that passes for sunlight through that red cloud. I had to tie a couple of tourniquets. It wasn't really fun. I was just glad I knew how.

It was hard, doing what little first aid I knew how to do with lasers raining down from the sky, big old aliens running up and trying to slash me, and these little black bat things dive bombing me everywhere. Even though I wasn't going anywhere in particular, I couldn't stave off the feeling like I was getting lost, going in circles like some of the roads, and every funny angled intersection made me wonder if I even knew what direction I was facing.

He was standing over a soldier when I found him, looking at him. I'd just seen a laser flash that way, so that could have been it, but something about the way Shadow was standing made me wonder if he was the one who knocked the guy down. He reached down and picked up the soldier's handgun. That was when I shouted.

"Hey, Shadow!"

He turned to look at me, surprised.

"Help me take out these, aliens, will ya?" I asked.

He glared at me. "I need to get the chaos emeralds."

"So you can give them to Creepy Mcdevilpants?" I rolled my eyes, motioning around. "He knows your name. Maybe that's all he knows. I wouldn't trust him yet."

"But I should trust you?" Shadow examined the weapon, aiming away from me and pulling the trigger.

"Like you'd trust yourself," I quipped, looking away. I searched the area around us for something, anything I could use to get through to him. I really hoped there weren't any civilians, but if I could just find a soldier that might trigger something in him, a memory, maybe I could make some progress.

And there she was, running out of one of those weird hidden drives that looked too narrow to even be a street. A tiny blonde girl, wisps of hair peeking out of her helmet, in armor, carrying a med kit. "Look at that, Shadow. That girl is going to have to get on her hands and knees to help these people. She won't be able to pay any attention, and it's easy for something creepy to use all these alleys as cover. One of those aliens could come up behind her easy."

He crossed his arms. "Sonic, I don't have time for this."

"Let's take out the aliens in the surrounding area. While we look for your emerald. That'll make less of a chance she'll get hit by anything."

"She looks like her. The girl in my memory."

"In your flashback. That's right."

"What's the difference?" Shadow looked at me, suddenly.

I chuckled. "You tell me, buddy. Come on, I see one of those soldiers up ahead."

We swept into the city, fighting aliens. I jumped into them and hit them, like I do Eggman's robots, but Shadow kept on shooting them. After a while, not long after we found the first emerald, he started breaking into military trucks to get more ammo, which got people swearing at us a lot. The look on his face as he fired at them, the crack of the gun, the smell of the gunpowder… it bothered me. It seemed like too much for aliens we could easily take down, and it made me think of everything I knew about Shadow's past.

You see… before he lost his memory, I fought him up on this space station. It was the same one Eggman gutted to make the cannon that broke the world apart, as a matter of fact. The military had locked him away, suspended, and when Eggman broke in and woke him up, it caused me a world of problems. It turns out Eggman's grandpa made Shad a long time ago to cure a disease Eggman's cousin had. But the military were afraid of Shadow, so they went in and had everyone they thought could possibly remake him killed. Everyone except one little boy they thought wouldn't remember, anyway.

Shadow saw Maria get shot, so he wanted revenge on humanity. I'm pretty sure that Gerald, Eggman's grandpa, did something to his mind to make him like that, though. Maria told Shadow to save all those people… but Gerald had him thinking she said to kill 'em all. I mean, Gerald basically said he did something to Shad in these journals he left behind, and in the video the military took when they executed him. Yeah, they executed Eggman's grandpa for trying to cure a little girl, just 'cause all the cures he was making were kinda dangerous. I'm not really surprised Gerald wanted revenge. Still, he sure makes Eggman look like a nice guy, and stable to boot!

But that's not what I'm getting at. We had thought Shadow was destroyed when he and I fought Gerald's other creation, but he came back with no memory later. I knew at this point that something was really wrong with him, but I wasn't sure what the problem was. Was it something physical inside his brain, or was it his mind, you know, his feelings? He lost more than just his memory. It was clear to me all of a sudden that he'd lost his sanity, or what little sanity he had in the first place, anyway.

I got shot at for the first time the night I met Shadow. They thought I was him. Can't blame 'em.

So yeah, gunshots aren't really my favorite sound in the world. And they were everywhere in Westopolis, some of 'em coming from the guy next to me. Aliens and soldiers fighting everywhere, comin' out of blind corners like something out of a nightmare. The sight of Shadow shooting a gun, the sound of it in my ears, the smell, it was making me a little sick to my stomach, and I was imagining him running around like a crazy man aiming a banana and shouting "bang" instead. It was just enough to keep me from asking him to split up, and not so much that I wanted to laugh.

"You should take one of these, Sonic," he teased, and suddenly the banana was smoking in his hands. He looked back at me, grinning. "Save your strength for the real enemy."

I shuddered. "I wouldn't be caught dead using one of those things."

"Then you'll be caught dead without one. Try and stay alive, Sonic."

He zipped ahead, and I did my best to follow, wind at my back.


	3. Stage Two: Lethal Highway

**Stage 2: Lethal Highway**

By the time I caught up to Shadow, we were out by the highway, Freeway 48. It had one of the highest accident rates in the world for a while, before they added a bunch of extra lanes and before everybody moved out of Westopolis, so the locals called it Lethal Highway. The part of it we got to ran along a huge stretch of abandoned buildings… If it weren't for the aliens I think it would have been pretty to see. Old, abandoned buildings made outa bricks, with different colors of bricks fillin' up the windows… There were rusty fire escapes working their way down the sides of some of 'em. Half-faded logos of old factories stared down the highway, although some of 'em were hard to see next to the bright billboards people had put up. Most people travelled that stretch of town to get to a swankier satellite city; when I was in the neighborhood I usually went out there to sprint because the road is nice and straight, and nobody drives in Westopolis at night.

Or at least, that's how it had been.

Not that night. No. Half the lights were out in the city, so you could almost see the stars. I take it the lights were out because everything was trashed. The pavement was cracking from the force of tanks. Overpasses were collapsed everywhere, blocking huge sections of the road. There wasn't a soul in sight who wasn't in uniform, which is kinda a relief and not a total surprise, given the city's reputation. There was a strange rumbling sound creeping up through everything, instead of the usual car horns and gunshots.

"Shadow, wait up!" I called, running up to him.

He was tinkering with a beat up old motorcycle with some Chun-nan brand across the side, revving its engine. "Look at this, Sonic! It was just sitting there, keys in."

"It's not yours. Will you help me stop the aliens?"

"There are a bunch of little blobs that bite… I think I can run them over with this."

I could feel my eyes widening. "Shad… they're probably kids."

"They tried to eat my shoes," he whined.

"So… smack 'em?"

"So they can eat my _hands?"_

Do you see why you remind me of him, Chip? In some ways, you're like what he would be if he were nice and had a conscience.

I started to shout at him, but suddenly he lunged off the bike, at me. Before I could react, he gripped my hand and jerked it down, throwing me face-first onto the ground. I was just about to hop up and kick him when I felt a tingly feeling over my legs. That rumbling, bubbling noise was close, and something was catching on my spines, bending them a little as it passed. They twanged uncomfortably as they snapped back into place, and I let out a little moan of pain. I lifted my head and saw it pass over me, floating… It was strange, shaped almost like that freaky alien guy's head, with a central ball and plane-like wings sticking off it… but it was a gray-blue color, not like the other aliens. It seemed… innocent, somehow. It didn't seem as menacing as everything else, like it was just trying to get away.

Shadow growled behind me, and I could hear gunshots ring out as I saw something whiz over my head. Instead of hitting the floating thing, though, the area around it lit up with this crazy blue light. It was the most beautiful blue light I'd ever seen… it was like what would happen if you took my spines in the daytime and found a way to run light through them like they were water.

A floating tank with a shield.

It plowed into a contingent of soldiers, somehow able to get behind them as easily as it had behind me. It didn't stop, it didn't slow… a few of the soldiers fell right off an overpass. I jumped into action.

Now, I don't know if you know much, but you know I can break the sound barrier. Still, that assumes that I'm starting from standing and I have to take a certain amount of time to accelerate. Plus, I can't fly. I would have to run down a slope to catch someone falling unless I wanted to go splat too. The rate things fall at is just about three floors of a building per second. I fall at the same rate as anybody else… and I was at least that far away.

By the time I got to the edge, I couldn't even bring myself to look down it.

I don't know how long I stood there, just staring at that tank as it drove away, trying not to think about how badly hurt those guys were. Trying not to think about how I failed.

I heard the purr of a motorcycle as one pulled up next to me. I could hear Shadow step off, but I couldn't move. Something about this whole situation was too familiar to me, too wrong. I couldn't place why. I couldn't look down. I was afraid of water, not heights.

Then came a voice from below. "Hey, that's my bike!"

"It's mine now."

"That's not fair."

"I could put you back where you were before I chaos controlled you to safety."

Chaos control is this neat little trick Shadow can do. Warp time and space, appear and disappear places. It's similar to what I do when I boost or quick step, but a lot more complicated. Apparently he had used chaos control to take them from the top of the overpass safely to the ground.

Finally I looked down. The soldiers who fell were standing there, holding the body parts the tank had hit, unharmed. One of them was shaking his fist angrily at Shadow.

"You win this time, hedgehog!"

"You can take it back when I'm done with it. Why don't you jack one of those convertibles along the way," He cooed helpfully, "That's more your speed, I'm sure."

I just watched his face curl up with anger, disgust, helplessness. I couldn't see much under that helmet, but his lips were enough. It seemed like such a little thing, to take away someone's bike after stranding them somewhere. Shadow was a bully for sure, but something about seeing that look on a man in uniform made me think of something…

Then something hit me across the face.

"The hell is wrong with you, Sonic?" Shadow snarled. For a second, all I could see was his white glove near my face, open-handed. Of course. I'd zoned out, and he'd hit me. Not like me to drift off like that, but I thought I'd failed and those people had died. I don't do well with failure.

"I thought I was too late." I shook my head, looking into his cold, red eyes. "Shadow, we've got to stop that tank thing. It could kill more people. It might even be on autopilot…"

"I think aliens that are actually trying to shoot people are more important, Sonic."

I growled, trying to think of a way to make my idea make sense to Shadow. I mean yeah, the aliens were actively trying to hurt people, but they also went down with about two shots from Shadow's gun, or two smacks from my spines. This tank must have taken a bunch of fire from Shadow and some soldiers, and there wasn't even a scratch on it. If it drove into a place with civilians… Or even agents who weren't ready for it…

Rouge.

"What if it goes to Central City? I'm sure Rouge is on assignment there," I erupted.

He sighs. "Fine, we'll stop your damn tank. But keep up with me, will you?"

We took off after it, Shadow shooting at it with guns, occasionally stopping to rob an army vehicle here and then. When we went under one of the few surviving overpasses, though, a bunch of aliens jumped out at us. Some of them were the black soldiers, with claws and the weird knees, but there were a couple new things this time. I saw the flying ones first, giant winged things, bigger than us, who launched some kind of energy beam at us. When I rolled to dodge that, I felt something warm stick itself to my leg as I hit the ground. Before I could react, as I finally got to my feet, this terrible burning started. I shouted and smacked at my rear end with my hands. After a moment, a little red blob fell off me onto the ground. It hit with a splat and scooted away.

By the time I was done dealing with that, one of the bird like things screamed and collapsed over a burning car.

"You take care of the blobs! I got the fliers," Shadow ordered.

I didn't have the heart to stomp all of 'em, they were so cute. Little red blobs crowding around me, looking at me with these big, yellow eyes. Three little antennae stuck out of the area around their eyes, and they quivered with each scoot toward my feet. I started sliding the toe of my shoe underneath 'em and flippin' em upside down onto their eye, one by one; none of 'em could seem to right themselves. After a minute, though, there were just too many. One of them managed to get ahold of the side of my foot, and as I flipped his buddy, he started working his way toward my leg. I reached down to get him off with my finger, but another one grabbed my glove. One snuck up behind me… then the burning started. I could feel the bites, burning like acid in Eggman's factories, maybe it WAS acid for all I knew, as they began to advance up my legs, up my arm, what if they got to my eye, oh my god how did he chaos control again, get off my chest, what are you doing, get away from my face….

I felt the edge of a sticky underside grip my chin and pull. Then there was a burning pain all over me, all at once. By the time the pain cleared… by the time my eyes started to focus again… Shadow was standing there, looking down at me. My arms and legs, my chest still burned a little, but it wasn't getting worse.

"You're an idiot, Sonic!"

"What did you do?" I asked, holding my hand out. He gripped it and yanked me to my feet.

"I don't know. I was able to release some kind of energy. It worked. Now quit being an idiot and kill the damn things!"

I looked around. "Not if I don't have to. We have to catch up to that flying tank thing."

"If you insist."

I took the lead this time, running ahead of him, dodging anything we ran across. Somehow, even though he was clinging to that stupid motorcycle, we still managed to catch up to it as it curved along an entrance ramp. He opened fire on it again, lighting what felt like half the city up with blue fire. As he ran out of ammo, I leapt up and jumped into it, trying to carve a hole in the shield with my spines. It felt tingly, but I was able to home in on it over and over again, running after and jumping into it. The shield suddenly turned green and it veered right off the overpass, flying through the air as I leapt into it. I careened into the guard rail and went over it, catching myself with one hand as it flew away.

"It s heading toward the river!" I shouted, looking back to see where he was. He was… still back where we were when we spotted it, gunning down slugs.

"Shadow!" I roared, louder, "It's heading toward the river! If the bridge is down no one will be able to stop it from getting to Central!"

He hopped back on the bike and drove after me, at a snail's pace.

It was almost ten minutes before we saw it again, with few interruptions from aliens or soldiers aside from the occasional patch of hungry little blobs. Sure enough, as I thought, it was near the waterfront, where all the streets were straight .

"Shadow, get off the bike and run!"

I burned toward it, pushing my legs as fast as I could go. He was able to fire a few shots off before I could almost hear the empty click of his gun, but the shield still stood. I took a leap into the air and drove myself into it, and I heard a terrible shattering noise like glass as the shield seemed to dissipate. I landed to get a good jump on it, to finally leave some damage on it…

And then water was in my socks, on my belly, in my noise, my eyes, my ears.

I leaped out of the water, trying to see where it was going, but by the time I surfaced it was already on the other side of the river. I waded back to shore, wringing out my gloves. Shadow came up to me and started so speak, but I glared at him, and he stopped.

"Damn," I spat, "they got away!"

"Maybe if you hadn't-"

I started to yell at him for tinkering with the bike, for messing with the soldiers… but the fact was that I had made mistakes too. His mistake may have protected him from a fate I almost suffered. I was long past the point in my life where I need to point the finger at other people for mistakes I made.

"There's no time for that." I shook my shoes out. "I'm going to find the bridge and go after it. You can do whatever you want."

I ran off, looking into the distance, hoping the bridge into Glyphic Canyon was still up. It took me a while, but I caught the tank, and it crumbled to the ground after one more hit. After that, I tried to limp out of the city, into the canyon, but I blacked out before I got there.

* * *

**Author's Note: **I had to edit this a little to clean it up a bit. FFnet's guidelines are a bit more stringent than dA's.


	4. Stage Three: Circus Park

**Stage 3: Circus Park**

While I was off dealing with my problems, Shadow had his own thing going on: "Where's that damn fourth chaos emerald?"

By this time, Shadow'd found three chaos emeralds: Two while we were in Westopolis itself, and one at the end of Lethal Highway, after I left to chase the tank. Shadow decided that he needed them whether he trusted Black Doom or not. He knew how powerful they were, and he wanted to see what he could do with them.

His aimless wandering searching for them eventually lead him north of Westopolis, into what was apparently a landfill. Shadow had a pretty sensitive nose, though, and nothing unpleasant was coming from the place. Actually, the only smell he could pick out of the landfill was popcorn.

He was a little hungry, although honestly he would have preferred a banana or something, but he decided to investigate. Climbing the hill, he gasped as he crested it. Stretching out for the length of the "landfill" was an amusement park, lit up in green and orange under the deep blue Westopolis sky. Even at the top of the hill he could see a logo painted everywhere, a little round face with a giant moustache.

Eggman has this thing for amusement parks. The Floating Island, first, and now this. Eggman was building an amusement park right outside of Westopolis. In fact, trying to stop it was why Tails and I had been in town in the first place, before I'd noticed Shadow and gone off to check on him. As a matter of fact, when I passed out near Glyphic Canyon, I still had Tails' sack lunch with me, banana and all.

So Shadow was standing there, pondering what the point of this place could possibly be, when suddenly a whirring noise got his attention. He turned and looked to see a little blue and yellow plane flying toward him, low in the sky… Not the Tornado-1, but the Tornado-3, Tails' personal plane. Even as Shadow stood on the hill, he could see the fox inside, biting his lip. Tails began to weave through the air carefully as he passed overhead, but something from below hit the plane, and it began to go down. As it fell, Tails screamed from inside, a terrified noise that sent a chill down Shadow's spine. He fought not to see the little girl's face, focusing instead on the sparkly glint that went spiraling out of the plane.

"That chaos emerald!" Shadow muttered, resolving to himself to find it. If that meant helping the fox… then so be it.

He raced down the hill, into the amusement park, past droves of stout orange robots brandishing lances. Shadow was a little annoyed with this whole thing: Black Doom being vague, me being a little more judgmental than I probably shoulda been, the difficulty of finding the emeralds, fighting off anything in his path. More than that, Shadow was annoyed with the state of his memories. Ever since he'd woken up in that pod, he had no recollection of his past. All these people seemed to know him, but he didn't know himself. All he really knew was that he didn't know, and that he wanted to make someone pay.

It wasn't long before he found Tails, knelt down by his shattered plane, tinkering at it with a wrench. Tails' twin tails, the source of his nickname, were swishing in the air behind him as he angrily worked on a nut.

"Oh no, I stripped it!" he sighed. "Not like there's anything to put back together, anyway." As Shadow's footsteps crunched behind him, the little fox's ears perked up. "Sonic, is that you?" Did you bring my lunch? I'm really hungry and that ice pack is only going to keep it cold for a couple more hours…"

"Why can't anyone tell the two of us apart?" Shadow sneered.

Tails' tails froze mid-air, his back stiffening. "Sh…shadow?" he asked.

"Who the hell else would it be? Eggman?"

Tails turned around, looking at Shadow with wide blue eyes. "Shadow. I didn't… I didn't know you were in town. I uh…" He gulped, his eyes narrowing slightly as they settled on Shadow's hands. "I like your gun."

Shadow looked down at it. An mp5 semiautomatic he'd lifted off a soldier on the highway, although it was short on ammo now. As far as he knew, and he knew right, Tails was really fond of most kinds of weaponry, so something about Tails' complement rung hollow to him. Still, he didn't have time to deal with some nerdy kid criticizing his choice of firearm. He scoffed.

"Shadow, have you… have you heard from Sonic?" Tails pleaded as Shadow collected his thoughts. Shad had never heard the kid sound quite so worried, and it made him feel a little bad for him.

"He's chasing some alien spacecraft out by the bridge," Shadow huffed, trying not to sound compassionate. "I'm sure he's on his way back here by now."

Tails nodded sagely, his little voice squeaking as he assured, "I'm sure he is! Well, um… anyway, Shadow… Sonic and I were just about to explore Eggman's new amusement park. We think if we can stop him from getting rings off the black market, we can put a dent in his plans to build robots and weapons. We figured a good way to start would be seeing how we can do for rings in this place. We think he might be funding his operations by gambling."

Shadow nodded. He remembered someone telling him about that, maybe it was me, maybe it was Rouge; he didn't know. Still, the park looked like an interesting diversion from the aliens, and something about those big blue eyes made him want to protect the little fox. Plus, it would help him find that fourth emerald.

"Well then. Let's see."

Tails started walking away from the wreckage of the plane, and Shadow followed him for a second before speeding ahead. Shadow could feel the little fox hot on his trail, almost looming behind him as they raced down the corridor installed in the park, seemingly for his benefit. It felt familiar, running down a narrow corridor with someone who could never keep up, but still dreamed of trying. He glanced back, and as a green light from one of the games caught in the reflection of Tails' left eye, it sent a chill down Shadow's spine. Familiar, but why?

As they passed through, Shadow couldn't believe all the strange sights he was seeing. He'd seen the little orange robots before, somewhere. He knew that much. What he didn't recognize, however, were some of the other robots. There were orange robots that seemed to be on springs, flopping around ineffectually as they passed. There were clown like bots on round balls juggling clubs, occasionally tossing them at everything that moved.

One of the orange robots with a small yellow gun set its sights on Tails, and the fox leapt into it, grunting. Seeing he could take care of himself, Shadow stopped to watch one of the clowns dance around the area on a large rubber ball, tossing clubs into the air with a smiling face and catching them easily. As he saw Tails pluck the gun out of the robot's unmoving hands to his right, the clown tossed a club to the left of Shadow, grinning.

"You're not a very good juggler, are you?" Shadow quipped.

Suddenly a hand grabbed Shadow and yanked him away from the club, which exploded before his eyes. It took him a second to look over at Tails, who was staring at him, eyes ready to water. Shadow fought a shudder: why did he care what happened? And why was the fox holding a gun from one of those robots by the barrel and not the handle?

"Be careful, Shadow. If Eggman's robots throw it at you, it probably explodes."

"I'm sure I could have taken it. What's the point of this place, anyway?"

"I think Eggman thinks it's funny. I think maybe he didn't have much of a childhood…" Tails shrugged.

"I think it needs to go down."

"I don't think it's wise to get close to that thing,"

Shadow reached over and grabbed the gun out of Tails' hands, taking it in his left. He raised it to the robot and began firing, popping the ball on which it walked. Another pair of shots and one hit a club, detonating it. The robot exploded into a pile of scrap. Tails' jaw fell open.

"I didn't expect that from you," he murmured.

Shadow narrowed his eyes, glaring at the fox. "What do you mean by that?"

Tails gasped, recoiling a little, leaning back. "Oh, I don't mean anything I just… you…" He looked away. "You're here! Helping me with Eggman! I never expected that."

"I'm not helping you with Eggman. You're helping me blow things up. Besides," Shadow murmured with a grin, "I don't often find company who appreciates a good weapon."

Shadow kept walking, hopping onto an elevator shaped like a circus barrel, red with white stars. Tails followed him.

They kept on like that all night, destroying robots and playing the games. There was a shooting range with balloons; Shadow was surprisingly good at it, and Tails could hold his own. Shadow couldn't beat Tails at the turret version, though; he was impressed to hear the little fox gush about how well-designed Eggman's turret were after the game was over, and they talked about how much Tails wanted to see the latest model of turret GUN was installing in some of their airships. They walked across tight ropes, jumped through flaming hoops, and smashed a lot of robots.

As the sun started to rise, Tails smiled and sat down. "Wow, Shadow. That was really fun! Busting up all those robots… playing all those games. I sure am lucky to have you as a friend."

"Friend?" Shadow scoffed, looking down at Tails. The blue eyes that stared back at him made his chest feel tight; for a minute, he was looking up at a girl instead. He shook his head. "That's a strong word. You're less annoying than Sonic, though."

Tails nodded. "You and he… don't really get along, do you?"

They were interrupted by a nasal screech shouting, "TAILS!" Both both turned to look behind them. Floating there before them was a small gray pod with a screen on it. A little man was gesturing wildly on the screen.

"Eggman! I can't even see you on that tiny little screen," Tails recovered, turning his gaping expression into a laugh. "How's the budget?"

"Shut up! And Sonic! How nice to see you both here! Do you think you could perhaps cause less problems elsewhere before coming to pay me a visit?"

The little man on the screen was fat, round, and bald. You know Eggman. It's hard to miss him. And even though Shadow could barely make out any details of Eggman's face, something about the way he was standing, about the arch of his back, made Shadow uncomfortable. He could almost remember someone looking like that…

"Sonic's not here," Shadow sneered, crossing his arms over his chest.

The tiny little head on the screen tilted back slighty, hands coming together, finger steepling. "Ah! Shadow. How wonderful to see you again. It certainly does explain a lot. Do you think you could do me a favor, for old time's sake, and get the GUN robots who likely followed you in OUT OF MY HAIR?"

"But Eggman," Tails informed helpfully, "You have no hair."

Shadow chuckled at the joke.

"Quiet, Foxboy! Look, Shadow, I'll make it worth your while. I have cotton candy?"

Shadow rolled his eyes and shot the pod in the screen. As it flashed with one last burst of electricity, he noticed something glint on edge of the hill leading out of the park behind it.

"Aww come on, Shadow! I was having fun making fun of him." Tails bit his lip again. "What did he mean, GUN robots who followed you?"

Shadow shrugged, walking up the hill on the edge of the park. "Oh, I stole a soldier's bike on Lethal Highway."

Tails ran after him. "Shadow… where are you going?"

Shadow knelt down on the side of the hill and started reaching around in the grass. He could almost see it glittering. After a moment, his gloved fingers picked up soething cool. He pulled his hand out, revealing a chaos emerald, sparkling beautiful white in the rising sun.

"My emerald!"

"Not anymore. It's been fun, Tails. I think there's another emerald over at that island." Shadow smiled. "Be seeing you."

"Shadow! What are you doing?!" Tails shouted.

Shadow turned away.

"This is.. this is bananas! Don't you understand what's going on?"

He ignored the shouting as he ran.


	5. Stage Four: Prison Island

**Stage 4: Prison Island**

As he ran through the forest, trying to get back to the water, Shadow couldn't help but think of how Tails had acted. He had no idea who Tails was aside from being my friend, and thought there was no way Tails could know him all that well from before. They seemed to have so little in common. Yet Tails had invited him to help out, chatted away with him, and generally just treated him about the same way he seemed to treat me. Shadow wouldn't admit it if you had asked him, but he was kinda touched by the gesture. Tails reminded him of something he didn't quite remember, but he knew was good. He wondered if that was the Maria he always saw getting shot.

"Hey Shadow!"

Shadow was snapped out of his little reverie by that voice: deeper, but feminine somehow. Soft. He looked around, trying to get a sense of where he was. He found himself in a harbor lined with thick trees and few boats. Off behind him, Eggman Landfill, and further off, some old ruins. Ahead of him, a wide expanse of water and an island in the distance. He couldn't locate the source of the voice until she landed in front of him, smiling. The first thing he noticed was the first thing everyone noticed, the perfectly rounded heart on the chest of her catsuit. But then her wings, her white hair, her teal eyes. He knew her.

"Rouge?"

"I didn't expect to see you around here," she sauntered up to him, looking him over. "Have you lost weight?"

He glowered at her. "I wouldn't know. I can't remember anything."

"Poor baby." She reached up and brushed his cheek with her hand. He wanted to take comfort in the gesture, to let it remind him of something, but he felt too threatened by her. There was more to her than there was to me. He couldn't trust her, even as she promised, "I can probably help with that."

He reached up and brushed her hand away. "How could you help with my memories?"

"I'm going to the ruins of Prison Island to try and find some clues to your past. We think there might be more of Gerald Robotnik's records there."

"We?"

She grinned. "I hired some help. Come on, Shadow. We'll get you squared away."

Shadow crossed his arms. "Aren't you more worried about the aliens?"

She looked a little surprised for a moment, but then she grinned. "And who do you think is the key to dealing with them? It isn't your little blue lookalike, if that's what you think."

He grinned and stepped toward her, and she started walking, smiling as she looked back.

"Everyone keeps mistaking me for him. Are they colorblind?"

Rouge chuckled. "Who all was it?"

"Tails… Eggman."

"Did Tails see you at first?"

Shadow thought about it, looking up, trying to remember. "No…"

"Did Eggman?"

"He was using some kind of pod with a video camera and a really small screen."

"There you go. But you do look very similar. I wouldn't be surprised if people make that mistake even if they see you full-sized." She lead him over to a small motorboat. "All aboard. And wear a lifejacket; as far as I know, you can't swim."

He climbed nervously onto the boat, something about the water stretching off onto the horizon unsettling him. A life jacket was hanging there, and he slid it over his arms, fastening it carefully over his chest. Shad has never really cared too much about preventing destruction, but he thought it'd be kind of dumb to break something he might need to survive. He was surprised at how easily it fit, and how little he felt his spines pulling at it when he moved. Now that he thought about it, everything fit him kinda funny. His boots felt too loose, too low up his knee. His bracers felt too loose. She was right: he had lost weight.

"Am I really losing weight?" He pondered aloud.

"Enough that I'm glad I packed a picnic lunch. Maybe after we find some of those records we can go sit in the ruins of the Security Hall and reminisce about old times over some bananas."

Shadow raised an eyebrow. "You're the second person to mention bananas today. Tails…"

The bat grinned, leaning forward. Shadow tried to fight the pull of his eyes toward Rouge's chest; it was easier to see her hands move if he kept his eyes on hers. "Did he now? Foxboy called my boss about you. Said you stole his chaos emerald."

He chuckled, tilting his head back. "Stole? He lost it. I found it. And I told him where I was heading. When I'm done with them, he can borrow one."

She got up and started the boat. It began to pull away from the dock, an Shaow's stomach lurched a little at the movement. "And why would he need it?"

"I don't know. He's some sort of genius, isn't he? I'm sure he could duplicate it for his purposes, or something."

Rouge laughed. "You're starting to remember, Shadow. Tails made a fake emerald once before. But why not just let him have the real thing?"

"I need the emeralds to learn about my past. Black Doom seems to know me."

"Black Doom?"

"The aliens' leader."

Rouge nodded sagely. "I haven't seen him. Tell me what he looks like?" Shadow described him, carefully, and she frowned. "Hmm. Sounds sort of satanic-looking."

Shadow shrugged. "I guess he is." He looked down at the water, thinking about just why Doom's image seemed so familiar, but something about the sight of it caught his eye. It seemed almost yellow, and he could smell… something coming out of it. It reminded him of blood. "Rouge, what's wrong with the water?"

She raised an eyebrow, and peered over the edge of the boat. "I guess blowing up an island does terrible things to the water quality…"

"Blowing it up?"

"Ask Eggman about that."

Shadow had no intention of asking Eggman about anything, so he looked out at the water and tried to think about something else. Something told Shadow he couldn't trust the guy. At the same time, something told him he should. Given how familiar he found everything about him, and how low an opinion of him Tails seemed to have, Shadow was more inclined not to. He tried to focus on the churning of the waves, but he only found himself getting seasick. So he looked off at the horizon and suffered in silence.

Just when he thought he couldn't take anymore, the boat slid up to a raised metal platform sticking out of the water. There were tons of them here, little platforms and launching pads… Far off, he thought he saw what looked like the launch pad for some kind of rocket. Trees and long grass stuck out of the metal… and aliens were crawling everywhere.

He leapt out of the boat and into action.

Shadow combed the island for hours, finding a chaos emerald, but little in the way of records. What he did find was in the form of little memory sticks and discs. He had to shoo some detectives away from them, but it wasn't too hard, all things considered. The aliens hardly got in his way, especially with the more high-powered weaponry he found there.

When he found Rouge again, she was sitting inside a building in a cell on the floor, cross legged, looking up at the walls as she sipped something out of a thermos. The door was wide open.

"Rouge?"

"Oh, hey Shadow. Come look at this."

He stepped into the cell and felt his jaw fall, gaping. The inside of the cell, with only a small bench for furnishings, was covered floor to ceiling in writing in white paint. Equations, measurements, diagrams…

"What the hell is this?"

"Gerald Robotnik's final project. He created you, you know."

Shadow sat next to her, crossing his legs. He regretted it instantly, but getting back up would let her know he considered her a threat. "I don't remember him… but Robotnik… is that why Eggman looks so familiar?"

She nodded. "That's one reason. We worked with him, too."

"So what's this?"

"Tea?" she asked.

Shadow started to decline, but then he considered. He hadn't had anything to drink since at least Westopolis, and his stomach still wasn't quite settled after that little adventure on the boat. He gave her a little nod.

She pulled out another cup and poured him some out of a thermos, handing it to him. He took a sip, and despite the bitter taste, the heat felt good going down his throat.

"I'm a thief and a spy, not a scientist. But sometimes you have to take apart computers, break into them, to get into vaults. This reminds me of some of the manuals I had to study to do that. Or at least, that wall does." She motioned to another wall. "I've only seen data like that in Gerald's other records… the ones dealing with you, the Biolizard, and Maria."

"Who was Maria?" Shadow asked, starting to yawn.

"Your best friend. The girl you were created to save. The girl in whose memory you tried to destroy the world."

He nodded. "It makes a certain amount of sense." Then he took another sip. "Why are you telling me the answers? No one else would."

"You deserve the truth," she said, grinning, but something in the twitch of her smile made his heart catch in his chest. He could almost remember now… watching her connive and thieve… watching her contact someone mysterious when she was supposed to be working for Robotnik. He yawned again, and then looked down at his cup.

"Want some more tea?" She reached down beside her…

The memory swept over him like a wave of nasuea… hiding near the landing site for weeks, waiting for his revenge.. picking them off, one by one. But even the ultimate life form couldn't last forever. The bitter taste of water as he choked it down… the sleepy feeling that followed… the soldiers coming out of nowhere when he finally lay down to sleep… The pod…

He lept to his feet, splashing the cup at her face. As she screamed, he turned and ran, the crack of gunshots and the heat of bullets whizzing past him as he turned a corner. He ran as far as he could until his legs wouldn't obey him, and crawled a little more as the darkness overtook him. The last thing he heard was a buzzing voice as a cold hand picked him up.

"TARGET ACQUIRED. MOVING TO SAFE LOCATION. STEALTH MODE ENGAGED."


	6. Stage Five: Cryptic Castle

**Stage 5: Cryptic Castle**

While Shadow was finally starting to put it all together, I was feeling awful.

I hurt everywhere. Every movement sent a wave of sick through me. I was sure that if I got up to fast, I was going to throw up. Problem was, I hadn't eaten since before Westopolis. There really wasn't anything to throw up. Still, I didn't feel as thirsty as I did when I'd collapsed.

That wasn't the only thing I felt.

For a minute I thought I was dreaming, or maybe I was dead. It was warm where Westopolis had been cool… I could hear a soft voice humming… and a soft cloth, or a hand beneath it, was rubbing my chest and my stomach lightly. For a minute I honestly wondered if all of my adventures, everything I'd done, was all just a dream, and I was really laying there sick next to my mother. The whole thing was a little toddler's fever dream, maybe. I'd wake up to popsicles and medicine, and my choice of books to be read to me…

Then I moved my foot, and I felt the hard, hollow groove of my shoe against my arch. I remembered the day I'd first gotten my SOAP shoes, not long before the first time I met Shad. I remembered how stiff the bottom had felt against my foot, how softly and perfectly the heel had curved around mine. A child's fever dream couldn't have shoes that real. Whoever was rubbing my stomach like I was a sick kid, it wasn't my mother.

As much as I wanted to stay there… and as much as I would have considered it if I'd known it was Tails or Cream or something, I knew it wasn't. It wasn't either of their voices. It was a familiar voice, but one I'd never heard quite so soft. That just about narrowed it down to two people, and I was a little scared of both.

I opened one eye just a little, fighting to keep it open. I had no idea why I felt so tired. It was like it took monumental effort just to fight the burn of having it open. I saw pink, not white, and was mildly relieved. Amy can be a little bit of a creep, but the only other option I could have seen there was Rouge, and I think you can understand why I don't really trust her.

She stopped humming. "There you are, Sonic. I was so worried."

I groaned. "What are you doing?" I tried my best to sound accusatory, although to be honest, I didn't really want her to stop. Well, no. I wanted her to stop, wrap me up in a blanket, and then work on my head. My head hurt the worst, especially right up front. If I felt like I could move, I wouldn't have wanted to waste time. There was a world to save and I could be sick later. It didn't work that way, though. The fact was, I knew I couldn t really get up yet. No sense worrying about it.

She reached up and brushed my face with her hand, and I fought a shudder. I didn't want her to get the wrong idea and think I was enjoying it a different way than I actually was.

"I'm trying to help you feel better. I was looking for Cream and I just found you lying here. I don't think I've ever seen you look so sick." She rubbed my forehead lightly. "Is it true… about Shadow?"

I half-smiled, hoping the truth wouldn't scare her too much. "Depends on what you mean by it. But yeah…" I sighed. "I don't really know how to steer him in the right direction… how to stop him."

"I do," Amy answered calmly. "We're going to get you sitting up, feed you something, and then we're going to go rescue Cream. I think Eggman kidnaped her and hid her in his castle."

"You have food?" I asked, trying to keep a straight face as the thought turned my stomach.

"Nothing you'd like right now." She sighed, and added, sadly, "I'm not used to you holding still."

I forced my eyes open and pulled out my things. I still had Tails' sack lunch with me. "I don't know how long it's been.. it doesn't feel cold, so the yogurt probably isn't very good."

She took the bag out of my hands and rifled through it. "Ew. Looks like you sat on the banana."

I sighed. "Just help me sit up and I'll eat the damn thing."

It was about an hour before I was able to get moving again, and the nausea and the pain never quite went away. Amy, for her part, was pretty cool about the whole thing. She was patient with me, and once I got sitting up she kept her hands to herself except for my shoulders. I wondered what I'd done to put myself in a state like this, but I wasn't about to openly speculate with Amy. She's a good friend and I trust her in a lot of ways, but there are a some things she just doesn't understand.

I tried to keep all the things I didn't want her to worry about off my mind. Amy can read me pretty well, almost as well as she can read Shadow. I focused instead on the little yellow-tan brick guard posts around us, the dying vegetation. The eerie shape of a castle in the distance, shaped like something out of a dream and colored like a nightmare. It reminded me of Shadow. I couldn't get away from him. So I decided to stop trying.

"You think you're ready to rescue Cream?" she asked me as I climbed to my feet.

"No time to waste. I'll call Tails and ask him what's going on after this."

"He told me about Shadow. I called him when I found you lying there."

I nodded. So Tails had run into Shadow. "That explains a lot."

Amy pulled out her hammer and smashed a gate open in front of us, grunting. Past it, I could see Eggman s castle in the distance, huge beyond the next hill, like something out of a horror movie. Some kind of bluish smoke was coming out of the smokestacks, looking almost like ghosts in the distance. He sure had a thing for haunted places and haunted people.

I guess he told GUN, too."

"What?" I felt my jaw drop.

Amy looked back at me, putting away her hammer and putting her hands on her hips. "If Shadow's collecting Emeralds, don't you think GUN should know?"

I was so angry I slapped myself in the face. "So they can lock me up again?"

Yeah, last time Shadow got out, he started collecting chaos emeralds so he could use them in that canon and destroy the world. GUN thought I was him and threw me in lockup in this place called Prison Island. I couldn't get out without actually hurting people, you know, not just smashing robots, so I had to sit it out. Amy was actually the one to rescue me.

"They're not going to lock you up."

"On the contrary," came a voice from behind us. I knew it well.

"Eggman."

We turned, and there was a little gray pod with a tiny screen on it. I could just make out his face on it, although if it were black and white, I coulda easily mistook him for Gerald… for Shadow's creator. Family resemblence, I guess.

"Sonic! You're looking well," he greeted. I could hear the sarcasm dripping in his voice. "Your Shadow troubling you?"

"I'm sure if I turn around and see him, there'll be three more weeks of winter," I quipped.

I thought I saw a smile. Not that smug, arrogant grin Eggman had, but a real smile.

"I'm so glad you can keep your sense of humor about this. Look, Sonic. I want to stop Shadow as much as you do. He and Tails are far more efficient at wrecking my belongings than you ever dreamed of being." Then came that little grin he has when he thinks he's got something on you. I could see it clearly even though his mouth was only a couple pixels wide on that screen . "It seems he's a bad influence on the foxboy."

For a second, it felt like my heart was going to stop in my chest. In a lot of ways, Shadow and Tails had a lot in common. The way Shad was devoted to Maria, Tails was devoted to me. If anything ever happened to me… Tails would never be quite that bad for a lot of reasons, but he might end up more lke Eggman. You know, angry, with a grudge and an idea that he could make things better, but maybe without caring enough what it cost. Tails was smarter than Eggman. I didn't want to know what would happen if he were just as angry. I glared. "Tails knows better than to take him seriously. We've been over this."

"Ah, but it gets worse, Sonic. Shadow just escaped from Prison Island. Or rather, Omega rescued him. He was unconscious, apparently drugged. I can think of only one person who would have the means and motive to do such a thing."

I nodded again. That explained a lot. I was going to give Tails a good talking-to for getting Rouge involved.

"Once GUN reduces its presence on the island, I'm sending more of my robots in to glean what they can from my grandfather's cell."

"Why do you care?" Amy erupted. I had to say, I was wondering the same thing, but I had a feeling I understood.

He shook his head. "Amy… how delightfuly simple of you. I know you often refer to me as a madman, but the fact is that I only want power, not destruction. Shadow _is_ destruction. He is a literal manifestation of the darkest moment of my grandfather's life, of my family legacy. And as we speak he's waiting to come out of whatever haze he's under so he can gather the chaos emeralds. For what? I can think of only two things he would do with them…"

"He thinks there's a third," I added.

"Does he? Then he's deluding himself into one of the other two."

Amy and I looked at each other. As right as he was, I was getting tired of listening to Eggman, and the look on her face made me think she agreed.

"Eggman, we don't have time for this," I snapped.

"What have you done with Cream?" To the point, as always. That's Amy.

"She's locked in a secure room in my castle," Eggman informed us. "I put some cartoons on for her."

"Why?" Amy asked.

"Because Shadow responds to young, innocent women who remind him of Maria. My actions will keep Cream safe, but they'll also give me a trump card should he try to come after me."

Amy charged in, roaring, leaving me there with Eggman's pod.

"Choosing not to help her, Sonic?" he taunted me. "My, she might even give up on her aspirations toward your hand."

I just shook my head and laughed, even though I didn't feel much like laughing. "Eggman, you're an idiot. I know you're not going to hurt her becuase you need her alive. You're going to keep her as safe as you'd keep your chao. When this mess with Shadow is taken care of, I'll come get her."

"And what happens when Shadow finds her in the meantime?"

"Then you make the slightest hint of threatening her and he puts a bullet between your eyes right in front of the kid. I shrugged even as I heard him gasp. I was pretty sure my eyes gave away how surprised I was at my own comment. I controlled my eyebrows, forcing them down as I continued. And that wouldn t break my heart, Eggman. I know you won t be happy until _you_ kill me, not anyone else, but I don t really care what you do as long as you aren t hurting someone. If someone kills you, that s sad, but it d be stupid of me to consider it my problem, especially after it's already done and I warned you it would happen."

My head began to throb. I could feel my heart speeding up in my chest. I didn't really feel that way, did I? But the words came so easily. I told him that to protect him, right?

"Then what do you suggest I do, you meddling needlemouse?"

"You could clear the way for Amy, let her think she saved the kid all by herself, and focus on more productive ways to get rid of Shadow."

He paused, and eventually I thought I saw a hint of a nod on that tiny screen. "You're looking a little red in the face."

"I'm in a pretty black mood, yeah," I snarled. "I'm going looking for Tails. I don't want a scratch on either of those girls, Eggman."

I looked off at the castle behind us, the one Amy had run into. It towered up over the landscape, brown and sandy bricks, Sleeping Beauty's castle. For a second, I had to laugh. It was like a fairy tale: rescue a little princess from a castle. I m a lot older since those days, though. I've read the real fairy tales. Sometimes a princess was better off not getting rescued.

I took off into the jungle, leaving Amy behind.


	7. Stage Six: The Doom

**Chapter Six: The Doom**

Shadow hurt everywhere. Every movement sent a wave of sick through him. He was sure that if he got up too fast, he was going to vomit, only he couldn't recall the last time he'd eaten. The day before, maybe.

That wasn't the only thing he felt.

Shadow could hear a soft voice humming… He knew it well. A bare hand was rubbing his chest and stomach lightly, running it through the fur on his chest. Maria.

He tried to remember how he got there, why he felt so terrible… then it came to him. The experiments had rebelled. They had called out to him, willing him to join them in their madness, but he hadn't agreed. He'd stopped them from killing more soldiers, and had paid for it with injury. The Professor had to perform surgery on his head to fix the damage, and yet somehow he felt worse than he had before.

As much as he wanted to stay there, letting Maria care for him, he knew there were things to do, and he knew the colony was probably in danger. Gerald had expressed concern about it before he'd put him under.

He opened one eye just a little, fighting to keep it open. He couldn't understand why he felt so tired. It took a monumental effort just to fight the burn of having it open. He saw pale peach there, and gold. Maria. He felt relieved.

She stopped humming. "Shadow… I was so worried."

"Maria? What's wrong?"

She bit her lip. "Grandfather detected an unannounced GUN rocket launching from Metal Harbor. He says the shuttle or shuttles attached to it will be here in just over an hour. He wants me to take you and Harold to an escape pod and aim it at Apotos."

"Then… then let's go." Shadow started to sit up, but the movement sent a wave of nausea through him, and he retched.

"Take it easy," Maria soothed, gently pushing him down. She smiled at him, blue eyes sparkling in the dim light. "Grandfather said there might be some swelling on your brain. That'll make you sick to your stomach. He gave you a medicine that should take it down, but it takes time to take effect. So just.. slowly try and work your way sitting, then standing. Then we'll go, ok?"

He nodded and fought to stay awake, trying to find the will to sit.

It took longer than she expected for him to finally get to his feet, if the look on her face said anything, but he did it. Before his feet actually touched the ground, though, they heard gunshots and screaming. Without thinking, throwing up in his mouth a little, he dashed out the living quarters.

They were standing there over a pair of scientists… over Harold's parents, over the little boy's parents. He couldn't see the blood yet, but he could smell it. They were all in armor, head to toe, visors over their eyes, weapons in their hands.

He didn't stop to think. It was simple. Run up before they even had time to turn their heads to look at him. Grab the first gun and yank it hard toward him, so the discharge would hit the wall. Plow into one at the shoulder to take the other one off balance; by that time, the second one's gun was already aimed his way. Then just yank the gun out of the one's hand, and aim it at the other one's head.

"Drop it."

The soldier listened, and Shadow kicked his gun away. Then he took the other gun in his hands, studied it for a moment, and opened fire.

"Shadow, no!" Maria screamed, but it was too late.

The radios once strapped to their sides lay in pieces beside them both; one was holding the side of his hip carefully, as if to make sure the cloth of his pants were still there, as if feeling for bullets. Maria gave Shadow a little glare, blue eyes sparkling with tears.

"Maria, can you tie them?" Shadow asked softly.

"I"ll try," He'd never heard her voice so somber. She disappeared into their quarters and came back with the emergency ropes. With a little prompting from Shadow, she tied them together. Shadow tried not to think about their frightened faces, or their pleas not to hurt them, which continued even now as Maria tied them. He hadn't hurt them. He could have shot them, but he didn't. Why did they think he would change his mind now?

Maria tied the final knot, and only then did Shadow finally collapse to the floor, heaving. When he was finished, he got back up. "Now we have to find Harold and get out of here."

"He's in his room… but Shadow, what about his parents?"

Shadow looked down at them. One of them, Harold's mother, was clutching a part of her shoulder where Shadow felt a bandage on his own. Surely, if he could be saved…

"We don't have time. What if we don't make it?"

"We're two kids. These people can all save other people's lives. Let's get Harold to a pod and try to at least heal everyone who's been shot. If we let them know we'll go peacefully…"

The voice from behind him made him shudder, but Shadow couldn't bring himself to look. He knew Black Doom's growl in the back of his head. "You know how well that works, Shadow…"

"Maria…" Shadow shook his head. "The only way I can save you is if we go now. We're picking up Harold and we're going to that pod. Then I'm going to stay behind to try and rescue your grandfather."

She frowned. "Shadow… I don't want to lose you. You're like a brother to me…"

"I won't lose you. Now let's get moving!"

"It was a trap. Of course it was a trap. They knew all along…"

Shadow patted her back quietly as she cried into his shoulder The gunshots rang out around them, ricocheting off the blades of the giant fan they hid behind. Maria's hands were shaking on his spines, and her tears were wet on his arm and his face.

"How could they?" he soothed.

"They have crew lists! They know everyone who's on here! Of course the first place they would secure is the quarters of the two children on the colony!" She nearly spat the words. "Either they'd try and rescue us, or they'd use us to make our parents listen!"

Shadow tried to peek out around the hallway, but a shot whizzed past his nose. He stuck the barrel of the gun he'd taken out and fired it randomly, hoping it wouldn't hit anyone. "Maria… we didn't know…"

"Shadow, you were right. We're not going to make it."

She stood up and walked over toward the intersection in the hallway, tears streaming down her pale face. Her hand was on her chest.

"Maria, you can't be serious…"

"But we're going to try. Shadow, do exactly as I say."

He braced himself for it, nodding.

"WE SURRENDER!" she shouted. She kept screaming it, screaming over and over again, voice shrill, until the gunshots stopped.

"Have the hedgehog slide his weapon out where we can see it!" came a snarling voice from beyond the corner. She nodded at him. Sighing, knowing how this was going to end, Shadow slid the weapon out into the floor.

"All right. Now come out with your hands up."

Maria reached into her blouse, into the inside pocket of her jacket, pulling out something round, with an almost quilt-like pattern carved into the side. She pulled a metal pin out of the top. "Shadow, if I die… thank my uncle for this."

She tossed the object out into the hallway. Immediately a chorus of screams began. The leader's voice could be heard shouting "Fall back, fall back!" and Shadow heard cries of the word "grenade."

Maria grabbed Shadow's hand. "Run."

He obeyed as best he could, willing himself to wake up, to leave this terrible memory before the next event. "Maria," he asked, following the sequence of the memory, "What did you throw at them?"

"A toy… grenade!" She panted behind him. "Have.. .three seconds… fake…"

They ran into a windowed hallway near the observation deck… near the escape pods. This was the place. She stopped and he stopped with her, but he refused to turn around. "God damn it, Black Doom, let me out!"

There was a shot behind him and he screamed, but then he was on his back on cold metal, green eyes staring into his, sunlight filtering through blue onto his face where moments ago he had seen stars.

"Mornin' sunshine," I cooed. "Ready for your big trip?"


	8. Stage Seven: Lost Impact

**Stage Seven: Lost Impact**

He climbed to his feet, eyes wide, hand on his chest. I knew that wild look in his eyes; I'd seen it before. "Sonic? What are you doing here?"

I grinned. "We're outside one of Eggman's bases, the one by the volcano."

"I didn't realize it was that close to Prison Island." He glanced around, narrowing his eyes. Yup. Lost. Boy, was I glad I wasn't driving anywhere with him.

"Not as close as you'd think." I frown, sighing. I had a lot of catching up to do with him. "Tails just called me here. We're going up to the ARK. You can come if you want."

He raised an eyebrow, pacing, circling me. "Why are you going there?"

"Because you're the key to all of this," I explained, delicately. Had to walk a fine line here. "Maybe Gerald left some record up there. It all comes back to you. Doom came to you, not me." There was so much more I wanted to say here… I don't like holding back. But I had to. Tails and Amy were on their way… if he lost it and went all violent again with them around, who knew what could happen. I wasn't about to risk them like that, no matter how much it'd help me keep it together. I had to get him alone before I could work on that.

"Shouldn't we be going after the aliens?"

I shook my head, trying not to sigh. The aliens. There was so much to cover there, so much I couldn't. "GUN has them under control," I lied.

He curled up his lip, snarling, incredulous. "GUN couldn't handle them in Westopolis, or on the highway. How could they possibly handle them now? I think the ARK was better defended when I was there!"

Of course it was, Shadow. That's why you lost.

Still, I nodded, smiling, doing my best encouraging voice. I tried to get a little bit of that soft sound, the one Amy and Rouge spoke to him with, putting a little breath in my voice. "Good. You're starting to remember!"

That earned me more sneering, and he started to circle more quickly. "What could you possibly know about my past?"

Says the amnesiac. I tried not to roll my eyes. "More than you think. But you never keep pushing at it. You ask the questions, then you run off before I can answer them."

"You're just a fake!" he shouted, the spit flying from his mouth sparkling in the sun. "An inferior copy! How could I trust you?"

I fought not to laugh. I was the fake, huh? Oh boy. "Do you at least trust me to take you as far as the ARK?"

It was his turn to laugh. Open, in my face, stopping right in his tracks, his red eyes wide and angry at once. "Do I trust the idiot who wouldn't even kill aliens to save his skin to take me to the ARK?" Then he stoods straight, arching his back a little, letting his face relax until there was almost no expression left. "Of course I do. You're no threat to me, faker."

That's better. I smiled. "I'll make you eat those words once we work this out."

Shadow grinned, starting to reply, but then a clear voice cut through the air. "Sonic! Is that Shadow you're talking to?"

"Yeah, Tails!" I countered, nervously, trying not to let the tight feeling creeping into my chest affect my voice.

"Well, tell him to board," came a nervous reply.

I looked at Shadow and we made our way over, where a blue and white rocket was waiting for us. Tails was standing there, admiring his work, tails swishing with satisfaction.

Something bout the sight of him there… so proud, looking up at the ship, at the sky… I very nearly had to shake off all the emotions. The pride, the shared happiness, the fear, the regret. There was so much left to do… and I wasn't sure Tails was going to like what was coming.

But it wasn't the time yet. So instead of strapping myself in the cockpit, I made my way to a bunk in the back and strapped myself in there. Who knows how long it had been since I had gotten proper sleep, I mean, real, good sleep? I still felt terrible, still sick, and I wasn't looking forward to the space sickness, though that would at least be less on the parts of the ARK that had gravity controls. I wasn't sure what the problem was, but I had ideas. Sleep couldn't hurt.

I closed my eyes.

They say when you write about your dreams, you should do it in present tense.

They say that helps make it real.

I didn't need any help making it feel real… but maybe for someone else… I want you to understand. I've never told anyone else about this…

It isn't long before the pressure of the G-forces, the roar of the engines, are gone. I'm lying down on cold metal, staring up at a familiar greenish metal ceiling. My blood is on fire. I'm burning, everywhere…

"Shadow," comes a soft voice that grips my chest like a vice. "What's wrong?"

Before I'm even sure what's going on, the words come out of my mouth. His words. "The experiments are resonating with me…"

Oh no. No no no no no no. Not this, not here, not now. What the…

"They're attacking everyone!" We…" She hesitates, and though I'm not looking at her, I can hear the disappointment in her voice, the end of her words not chirping, not rising. "We'll have to evacuate… We'll have to try and find Harold, maybe grandfather, and leave…"

I sit up, looking her in the face, trying not to see her, trying not to retch. The latter works; the former, not so much. She's beautiful. She's so absolutely beautiful, the sweetest girl I've ever seen. Her blonde hair almost sparkles in the light and her blue eyes are so deep, so clear, blue like me.. .but her face. It's so easy to forget she's related to them, to Gerald, to Eggman. That squared off jawline, the nose just a little too big for her mouth. And that clever sheen in her eyes, like she knows so much more… She's so much like Eggman. There's a mental image I don't need…

I shake my head. "Leave it to me. I'll stop 'em."

She should say something about my words, about how they aren't Shadow's words, how the vowels are wrong, how my accent is wrong, how the rhythm is wrong. I'm not Shadow. I'm nothing like Shadow. She can't see it. Not real. Phew. Not real. No time travel. All in my head.

This isn't real. I can't stay here.

We're running toward one of the bays, her cold little hand in mine, he little soft footsteps behind me. We're standing there, watching in horror as one of the blue, sparkling creatures knocks an armored soldier to his knees, sending his gun flyng. It skids up to my feet and discharges, sending sparks flying on a computer panel to my left. The creature looks up at me, coldly, its body wavering, its beady eyes shining, as if waiting to give me a chance.

"Shadow! We have to help him!"

I pick up the gun in my left hand, hesitating, and the thought makes my stomach turn. I don't use guns. Shadow uses guns. But this is a dream, and I'm Shadow. Shadow uses guns.

This is a dream.. or is it? Maybe it's a hallucination. Maybe I'm wandering around Tails' ship right now. What the hell is in my hands there? A gun, or a banana? If I shoot here at this creature in this dream, will I move at all? What will I shoot if there really is a gun in my hands?

The creature strikes at me in my hesitation, and I sidestep, in front of her. She's vulnerable. If I don't move, she'll die a different death.

I can't risk it.

"Shadow?"

I scoop her up in my arms and run past the thing.

"Shadow!"

I run all over the place, finally stashing her away in a supply closet, fighting her squirming in my arms. No artificial chaos there. I put her in the corner near the door. Her eyes are wide, blue almost swallowed up by black, lips taught and straight, like Eggman's.

"Shadow, what are you doing? You left that soldier there!" She's whining, not bothering to try and hide the disappointment.

"It's not real."

"What?" Her voice is screechy, but I can still hear that t at the end of the word, the way Eggman does it. "How can you say that?!"

I put my hands on her shoulders. This is so real. She feels so warm. She smells like medicine and soap. Tears are welling up in her eyes, eyes as cool and blue as me. "I'm dreaming. You're fifty years dead. I'm not really Shadow."

"That.. that's crazy! Even if you are dreaming.. why not help all the people in your dream?"

That? That's a little too zen for Maria. She's a twelve year old girl. What would she know about Chun-nese philosophy? When you dream, the people in your dreams aren't the people you think they are. They're your idea of who those people are at most realistic, and a part of you at least. This Maria isn't Maria. She's not real. She's my idea of Maria. My idea of Maria? Way, way built up. The woman Shadow was willing to kill and die for. The girl Gerald was willing to destroy humanity for. The sweet little girl who inspired the masses.

My idea of Maria is nearly perfect. So, Maria in a dream is going to be the best in me. The wisest philosophies, the kindest feelings. The smartest observations. I'm going to pick her brain.

I think about it a little too long, becuase she says, "Is it what's happening to the research experiments? Is that happening to you, too?"

"Yes. Yes it is," I try to confess, looking down a little bit, trying to do that pouty thing Shadow does. "But I'm a person.. not an animal. Talk me through this. Please. Keep me talking."

"What does it feel like?"

"It burns. I want to destroy things. I want to make people suffer like I suffered."

"But what do you mean, suffered?" She sits down, biting her lip.

I sit down with her, leaning up against her, taking her hand. Her body is so warm, and her ha. "The artificial chaos… they're in tune with each other's feelings. Just like chao. Mistreat one and they all dislike you."

"Have they been mistreated?"

"Of course they have. They're experiments, aren't they?"

"Not by eveyone?"

"No. Not by everyone."

She leans on me. "Could we just evacuate people? Get you down to the planet, where it won't burn?"

"I told you. I'm dreaming. I'm on a ship. An escape pod here if I'm sleepwalking might be an airlock there. An artificial chaos might be my friend. I can't act. I've got to wake up. I know I'm dreaming." I shudder, hanging my head. "I have to wake up."

"It's only seconds, if it's a dream. You'll wake up soon."

"I should already be awake. I'm thinking too hard. You can't stay asleep when you think this hard."

Now, a twelve year old girl wouldn't follow that to its logical conclusion. My Maria, obviously, only looks like a twelve year old girl. She's really just as smart as I am, really knows what I mean by everything I say, becuase she's really part of me.

"You can't be thinking…"

I am.

I leave her there, running back to where the soldier fell. I stand there.

It hurts. It hurts a lot. I feel a hand on mine, on my right hand, again before it all fades away.. .and when I open my eyes again, a long yellow arm was sticking out from the bunk above me, fingertips touching the back of my hand.

That was when I got it.

I snuck out of the bunk slowly, carefully. Tails woke up anyway, blue eyes reflecting in the relative darkness. Before he could ask, I explained, "Gotta take a leak."

He closed his eyes.

I made my way to the engine room slowly, carefully, quietly, hoping I had time. The chaos emerald was there in the receptor. I fished it out, cupping it in carefully in my right hand, and whispered, "Chaos control."

Then I was gone.


	9. Stage Eight: Space Gadget

**Stage Eight: Space Gadget**

With a pop and a sickening, cold feeling, the ship was gone and the stars were around me. Cold, uneven metal floated under my feet, and a planet as cool and blue as I was moved miles underneath that.

He was there, waiting for me. Of course.

"What is this place?"

"This is the ARK. Don't you remember it, Shadow?" I held out my arms, looking around. The platforms floated everywhere, held in place by some kind of magnetic field… Long patches of metal roads the scientists would arrange to drive out into the debris field to harvest materials. Long yellow spires, still functioning after fifty years, stuck out of the platforms, lighting our way. Everywhere around us debris sparkled as it started to descend into the atmosphere, burning up."We raced here last time, you and I. If you could call it a race."

"Last time?"

"When you tried to destroy the earth. When you tried to kill everybody."

He put his hands on his hips, raising an eyebrow. "Everybody?"

"Everybody. The whole damn planet. Come on, chase me. See if you remember."

I took off running, valulting to the next platform.

"This is pointless! What are we racing for?"

"The last emerald!" I shouted back, turning my head to look as I hit a gravity switch. I immediately regretted it. Gravity switched on me, turning my stomach; it took everything I had to keep myself together. I twisted in the air, moving my feet so I would land on them, upside down. Shadow landed after me. Of course.

"Why are you telling me where it is?" he snarled, leaping ahead of me. He wouldn't get far. I knew where I was going, and I was pretty sure he didn't.

"'Cause it's not a race if there isn't a prize!"

I had to stay in control of the situation. I had to string him along. Get him where I wanted him. I had to seem like I had no idea…

"You're a fool if you think I won't take it!"

"You'll have to beat the fastest thing alive there!"

I jumped from platform to platform, triggering switch after switch, confusing him. I remembered them better than he did. He struggled to keep up, always a step behind me, and all I wanted to do was beat him. The most elaborate route, the best trick, the quickest movements. Keep thinking five steps ahead. Never stop to think about why, never pause. Notice everything else first. Play The Game. The cool purple light in the shielded protection tunnels, there for when the colony moved through a patch of debris. The feeling of the etched metal underneath my feet with every step. There were GUN robots there, looking for us, shooting at us, unable to differentiate between Shadow and me; I dodged them deftly; he took shots at them, but none landed. Good.

I could hear Doom there, whispering to Shadow… an uninvited eavesdropper. Just what was Doom anyway? I could feel him urging Shadow on to destroy, but I was too great a distraction, turning flips in the air, rotating with every turn of the gravity, regretting everything I'd ever eaten in the last week. I let the pounding in my head coarse through my veins, truly felt it, embracing it, anything to keep but thinking about where I wanted to be, where I wanted him to be, what I planned to do. We ran through corridors inside the ARK, through the same hallway where I'd given myself up to the artificial chaos in my nightmare. I could almost see her there, watching us, hand over her chest. We ran through the power systems, lasers singeing my spines. There were black aliens everywhere but I paid them no mind. They weren't my problem; they weren't my demons.

It had taken him nearly five minutes to reach the point I wanted him. He stood there, at the end of a walkway, no road or spring or obvious way out in sight. The Black Comet burned in the starry sky above us, red; the earth glowed in the sky below us, blue. The earth was me and the comet was him; how could such a little thing…

"Where the hell is it, Sonic?" Shadow demanded of me, baring his teeth.

I laughed. Threw back my head and laughed, so hard I wanted to brace myself on my knees. I had to stay positive, had to stay laughing. What was coming was going to be a trip. "There was no emerald, Shadow. I just wanted you to race me."

"You… you have the emerald! On you!"

"Sure do."

"Why here? Why race you all the way out here?" He put his head to his hand. "I don't understand you.. how could you trick me? You won't even use a gun…"

I walked up to him, face to face, nose to nose. I couldn't feel his breath. "I'm surprised you couldn't figure it out, Shad. I brought you out here becuase if you average out the place the ship was and the place the others expect me to go, this is the furthest safe point from there." I smiled, grinned, a wicked grin; I wondered how much I looked like Eggman.

Shadow took a step back. "Why would you move me away from your friends?"

"Because you're a danger to them. Because you're not stable enough to be around them. How do I know you're not going to try and kill them, like you tried the whole world?"

He snarled at me, getting up in my face, poking at my chest. "I don't just kill things, Sonic! I have no reason to hurt Tails!"

"Why Tails?" I taunted him. "Why not Amy?"

"I wouldn't hurt her either unless she gave me reason!"

I turned my back to him, laughing. "Why can't you see what's so obvious? I've been humoring you for so long…"

"Sonic, I don't give a damn about my word, but I promise you: your friends would have to do something to me for me to kill them. If you're going to fight me, fight me for yourself."

Well, that was an odd insight coming from him. Things were murkier than I thought they were. Lines were blurring. Good thing I ran with the worst case scenario.

I chuckled. "Of course I'm doing this for myself. Everyone does everything for themselves. I want to be able to look myself in the mirror every day, knowing I put my friends first."

"That's your way. Mine is to be in control. If you hand me the emerald, we don't have to fight."

I didn't respond with words; I charged at him arms out, trying to grab him. He caught my arms in his and pushed back, pushing me backward, roaring, his gun clattering to the ground. Every beat of his heart, ever thump of his pulse in his thumb on the knuckle of my finger, made my head hurt more. I pushed back, holding my ground, until I thought I could hold no more, until I thought I would lose it in his face.

Then I whispered, in my softest voice, "Shadow, please."

His eyebrows shot up, but he pushed back, still.

"Shadow, please…" I whispered, reaching up as high as my voice could take me, feeling my throat strain, "I need your help… "

"Maria," he whispered, his arms relaxing.

I threw his hands off and wrapped my arms around his waist, running as fast as I could. The air exploded around me with nowhere near the force I was used to, and I hoped Tails and the others wouldn't hear the Sonic boom as I leapt off the platform into nothing. I closed my eyes and held onto him tightly, trying to hold a shadow, waiting for it to be over, for the fall to stop or the burning to begin.

"Sonic!" I heard a voice cry.

I looked, suddenly, and Tails was there, on the platform I'd just left, hands reaching out to me, tails spinning behind him. He knew he couldn't fly in this thin atmosphere. He knew there was nothing he could do. I could almost see the tears forming in his blue eyes. But then a black and white shape came up next to him, smiling.

"Rouge!" Shadow called to her. Or was I the one screaming? I couldn't tell.

She started laughing, giggling, bringing that slender hand up to her mouth. Tails turned to her, standing on his tiptoes to get up in her face, nose to nose, teeth bared. But then she pointed just past me and her lips moved. He followed her fingers with his eyes, which widened, until his his shoulders slumped, relieved.

I wondered how he could relax, given what I'd just done.

Then gravity shifted again, violently, more strongly than I ever expected, more dramatically than the gravity devices ever did. Of course. How could I forget. Knuckles had told me about it. The far reaches of the Meteor Herd. Mad Space… What I'd leapt toward wasn't the Black comet at all; it was one of the ARK's mining operations with its own gravitational field. I wasn't going to fly up in space, or burn up on re-entry. I was going to crash. Apparently, if Tails was relaxing, I was going to survive it, too.

I tried to right myself, but it was too late. Wrangling with Shadow, wrangling with my thoughts, the suddenness of it all, a sudden need to change the plan. I couldn't move my feet fast enough. The ground hit me.


	10. Stage Nine: Final Haunt

**Stage Nine: Final Haunt**

I shielded his fall, or so he thought.

He landed on the Black Comet on top of me, or so he thought.

He got up and ran off without me, leaving me there to the aliens, or so he thought.

Eventually GUN showed up and rescued me, tending to my wounds and carrying me with them as they tracked him down, or so he thought.

Not that he thought a lot.

Shadow ran through the comet, weaving in between the aliens as they fired their lasers at him. None seemed to connect.

"Shadow…" came that growling voice.

He stopped suddenly. Before him was that eye, the strange starfish creature that spoke with Black Doom's voice. It hovered there among the gray-brown walls, dotted with veins of pulsing red liquid among slain aliens in pools of green blood. Shadow never stopped for a moment to ask him self why the aliens had so many red accents if their blood was green, of course.

"Shadow… the humans have discovered our comet's presence…"

He rolled his eyes. "Of course they have. It's a big burning comet in the sky. It doesn't take a genius to put two and two together here, Black Doom."

And if Shadow is pointing out the flaws in your brilliant plan, it must be pretty bad, right?

"There are shields throughout the comet that should keep them from progressing… activate them. Then we will isolate the last emerald."

Shadow took stock of how many he hand. Three from Westopolis. Fourth from the landfill. Fifth on Prison Island. Sixth on the space ship. I had lied to him, he decided. He was missing one.

"What if I want to get that last emerald by myself?"

"Then you shall feel our wrath!" The starfish threatened, hollow. "Do you not collect them for the promise of answers to your past? Do you not wish to know the truth?"

"Of course. How foolish of me," he apologized, lowering his eyes, trying not to smirk as he softened his voice. "Show me how to activate the shields."

The starfish floated over to a blue platform on the veiny, gray floor of the comet. "Press this switch…"

Shadow walked up to it and put his fingers on it… It spun beneath his hands, and a forcefield came up, blocking off his path.

"Now, take the Black Hawk to your destination…"

He looked up, across the raised walkway over a channel in the comet. At the end of it, one of those black creatures was floating there, waiting, yellow armor stuck to its head and body. Something about the way it stood there, the way it looked at him, reminded him of a chao…

He approached, and it bucked away from him.

"You shall have to tame it first."

Without hesitation, Shadow jumped up onto the creature and kicked it in the back of the head. It relaxed its wings enough to let him on the back and carried him over a rift, past a hoard of alien soldiers firing at him. It dropped him near another switch.

THey continued like this, Shadow running up to a switch and turning it, then subduing another black hawk. Even though he never crossed the same forcefield twice, Shadow couldn't stave off the feeling like he was getting lost, going in circles like some of the walkways, and every strangely-angled intersection made him wonder if he even knew what direction he was facing. He was starting to feel dizzy along with sick and tired. Something about this place turned his stomach; the flashing blue lights of the alien's energy weapons made his head throb…

The massive size of the comet surprised him; he was certain the interior was bigger than the outside. The black aliens mostly ignored him as he traversed through its walkways, shooting instead at nothing… he couldn't shake the feeling that the entire place might collapse, that he had to hurry, that he was running out of time.

Four of the shield generators had passed by the time he had to stop. He knelt over and retched next to one, waiting for Doom's eye to speak to him, to scold him for stopping when there was destruction to cause.

I didn't give Doomy the chance.

"Shadow, what are you doing? Are you seriously trying to help the aliens?"

"Of course I'm not helping the aliens!" he hissed at me, turning his head a little, wiping his mouth. "I'm baiting you like you baited me!"

He looked up, standing, and his jaw fell as he did. Behind me was a robot, red and gray, tall, with long arms and no feet. Shadow had more knowledge than he thought he did, and even without thinking he recognized that it wasn't one of Eggman's robots. It may have had some inspiration from him, maybe, but there was something there that didn't have that Robotnik family aesthetic. There was nothing soft and cutesy about it, and neither was it scary. It had a simple, human-like torso, and its hands were stubby and simple. The red plating on most of it had a much cooler tone than the oranges Eggman liked.

"Do you remember me?" came a voice from within, a deep voice, male, nasal, congested. "No, of course you wouldn't. Fifty years changes a boy, doesn't it?" Shadow thought he heard a smirk in the man's voice. There was a pneumatic hiss, and one layer of armor peeled away from the robot, revealing a graying man in uniform beneath shatterproof glass. He peered at Shadow with intense eyes, one green and one brown.

"You look familiar," came Shadow's reply.

"Then you don't remember. I am General Harold Anderson of Guardian Unit of Nations…"

"I know that much," Shadow sneered.

I put my face in my hands, wishing that either the throbbing or the embarassment would go away.

"I was also your playmate on the ARK. Shadow… I don't know what's happened to you. You aren't the person I remember. But either you need to come in with me, or I'm going to stop-"

To Shadow's credit, he was smart enough not to let Harold finish. Unfortunately for Shadow, I was there, leaping up to kick him in the face. Unfortunately for me, he was too fast; I wasn't on my A-game. He missed my foot by inches, planting his heel in my forehead. I cried out, falling, as he jumped from there, pulling a gun I thought I'd confiscated from nothingness. Of course I had made the mistake of trusting my senses…

The first thing he did was shoot around the cockpit. Sparks erupted from the sides of it, where the armor had receded. Harold flailed the mech's arms but he missed Shadow narrowly. "Hold still you devil!" the general shouted, sounding like the force of his voice might be too much for his face.

I leapt to my feet, starting to jump toward Shadow, but he merely vaulted off me. Of course. I couldn't stop him. I couldn't even touch him.

For Harold's part, he didn't let this faze him. He kept on sweeping the mech's giant arms around, shooting a blue laser at Shadow. Blue. Huh. Appropriate. It caught Shadow a few times, sending him spilling to the ground, but he always got back up, and the few times I got to him before it did, he just knocked me over when I got there.

Suddenly there was a ding, like the sound of an oven timer, and Harold growled. "Last chance, Shadow. For Maria! Turn yourself in, now!"

"Never! This is between me and Sonic!"

"What?" the GUN commander sputtered. After taking a second to recover, he dismissed himself. "Nevermind. Antimatter cannon, fire!"

Now, I'm sure it wasn't actually antimatter, but a blue glow came out of the robot, growing, erupting from it. Shadow ran away, waiting for the glow to dissipate.

I'm pretty sure he didn't see me just standing there as the blue glow swept over me.

He came back, reloading his weapon. He glanced up at the robot and snarled, "I'll deal with you later."

Then he walked up to me. I stood still, smirking.

He put the gun to my forehead.

"Are you sure you wanna do that, Shad?" I asked, smirking. Still, I closed my eyes. I had half an idea what was coming, and even though I wasn't afraid, I didn't need to see it.

"What the hell are you doing?" Harold demanded.

He fired. The bullet passed through me harmlessly, pinging off the mech's armor behind me.

"You can't piece the armor there!" came Harold's voice, incredulous and smug. Shadow dropped the gun and backed away.

"What the hell… Sonic? How?"

I chuckled, shaking my head. "Repeat after me, Shadow. So we can stop with the antimatter cannon already."

He nodded, nervously, color fading from his muzzle.

"Harold, this is Sonic. I'm fighting with Shadow for control. Give us a minute, will ya?"

Shadow repeated my words, exactly, intonation, voice rising exactly like mine.

Harold was silent within the mech for a moment. "I don't have a hell of a lot of time, Sonic. Get him reigned in before I have to take you in."

Shadow looked between the mech and me, green eyes wide. "I… I don't understand. Can't he see you? Why didn't the bullet work?"

"I'm not actually here, Shadow. I'm a hallucination. All of this is a hallucination: me, Doom, everything. We're standing on a particularly large piece of debris in the meteor herd, not the black comet. There are no aliens, near as I can figure, given the amount of attention GUN is giving to you." I bit my lip, thinking; Shadow bit his lip, too. "Hey, ask Harold if there are aliens."

"Harold, are there really aliens?" Shadow asked, his voice rising, whining, like my own in my earliest memories.

"What aliens? Do you mean the artificial chaos?" He responded, sounding worried through his stuffy nose.

Shadow sat down on the rock below, his voice getting small. Even as he sat I could see the purple ceilings and lined floors of the comet fading away to plain old rock. Reality was setting in. "But I remember fighting with you.. I remember running along the ARK… Helping Eggman…"

"All in my body. All of our battles have been… in our head." I walked over to him, kneeling. "I'm the real Shadow. I always have been. You're a piece of something physical Gerald put in our head, blended with the worst in me, the things I couldn't accept. Remember what Rouge told us? 'Your memories might not even be real, you know?'"

His lip began to quiver. "What about Maria? What about… all the things they did to her?"

"That was real. She sent us to Apotos in the escape pod with her dying breath. Maria's the only part of this that is real, except my friends."

"And what about Black Doom?"

I frowned. "He's just something my mind made up to make it easier to accept the things Gerald's device are making you… making us do. That's why he looks like a satanic dark chao. I mean… do you really think aliens would look like the devil?"

"Sonic," came Harold's voice from the mech, "My reinforcements are going to be here in about two minutes. I really need to have you in custody by then."

I nodded, and Shadow did too. Good. I was getting control back. I spoke out of my own mouth, and suddenly Shadow was the one kneeling next to me. "I'm going to empty Shadow's gun and throw it the other way. Take it easy on me. I feel awful."

I stood up, picking up the gun, and unloaded it, removing the clip. I tossed it across the little sphere, and the strange gravity sent it flying off into space.

The mech produced handcuffs from a compartment on its side. "Awful? Awful how?" There was a little hint of sympathy in his voice, and I could almost hear a stuffed up little boy in his place.

"Didn't you see Shadow throw up?"

"I thought it might be guilt."

"I'm so lost… Sonic, am I really just a thing in your head?" Shadow asked desperately, his image fading away before my eyes.

I held out my hands behind my back, nodding to Shadow, wincing as I felt the cuffs snap around them. "It's not," I told Harold. "I've been feeling it, too, ever since Lethal Highway. I think whatever physical thing in me that caused Shadow is responsible."

"We think Gerald put some kind of microchip in your brain. Eggman and Rouge are working on deactiving the control device Ivo found in the Iron Gate as we speak." Harold cleared his throat. "Eggman thinks he can save the Shadow personality from the device and then wipe it remotely. I don't know why he'd want to do that."

"Shadow's more than just a program, Harold. He's a piece of me, and he was good to Tails. He deserves saving."

I closed my eyes and sighed, and then everything was black.

* * *

**Author's Note**

Quite a few of my readers at DeviantArt did not like this chapter. Many claimed to have found it confusing.

To address that concern, I just wanted to let you know two things.

One is that at least one of the readers who found it confusing understood it on re-reading. He said he needed to give himself time to understand the twist. And boy, is it a doozy of a twist.

The other is that I WILL post the ending next week. Even if I don't, it's literally linked on my deviant art page. I have the first and last chapter of this posted on the FRONT LEFT of my Deviant art page. The link to the last chapter is UNDER the thumbnails. Make sure to go down to the author's comments for a link to the epilogue as well.

Thank you all so much for your support: your favorites, your follows, your reviews. I hope I don't disappoint you. I just need you to bear with me a little longer.


	11. Stage Ten: GUN Fortress

**Stage Ten: GUN Fortress**

The next thing I knew, I was warm and something soft was under my throbbing head. Warm hands of different sizes were wrapped around mine, one rubbing the back of my thumb, the other laced between the fingers on the other side of my hand. And familiar voices, voices I'd been scared I'd never hear again, were speaking in hushed tones.

"Eggman.. why are you doing this for us?" came Tails' voice, curious. He squeezed my hand a little tighter, thumb holding still on mine.

"Tails, how delightfully naive of you! It's like I said to Amy not all that long ago. If I were to let Shadow go, he would destroy the world I intend to rule. For the time being, my interests, GUN's, and yours are all the same."

"But you could have just let Sonic die," Amy came back from the other side of me, her fingers loosening the grip between mine. "And you didn't… and I'm glad you didn't, but… I thought you wanted to kill Sonic?"

"It's cause…" I tried to explain, my voice hoarse, the words difficult, "…'cause he wants to kill me.. who gives… a rip… if I die?"

"Sonic!"

I wasn't prepared for the hugs that came, but if I weren't the tiniest bit queasy yet, I wouldn't have minded them. I could feel tears landing on me; I didn't know who they were coming from. Half the time I couldn't tell which squeak of reassurance was which. I started to sigh with relief, but then I felt something new: a large hand, maybe larger than mine, patting me on the shoulder. For a second I tensed, flashing back to a different hand on my shoulder… but his touch was gentler than Gerald's, and it lingered just a second longer.

"I would have been very cross if you hadn't pulled through," came his sneering, angry voice, shaking a little bit. He sounded so much like his grandfather, and yet there was something there that Gerald had never had. An affection, almost. A respect I'd never gotten there. A softness, like Maria's. "No one gets to kill you but me. Especially not some damnable microchip!"

I smiled and opened my eyes. Amy's green eyes stared down at me, Tails' blue, and Eggman's gray. He'd taken off his glasses, which was a shock to me, and looking back I can't see much reason why he did. His eyes looked more like Maria's eyes than Gerald's. For the first time in almost fifty years, that resemblence didn't bother me. Maybe there was a little Maria in him. Maybe that was why we had so much fun trying to stop each other, all these years. Like we stopped Shadow…

"What about Shadow?" I asked.

"Right here," came a voice I almost recognized. I started a little bit, the jump sending a wave of pain through my head, not to mention my stomach. Amy grinned and stepped aside, and a black hedgehog stepped into the circle. Black, red, upward-turning spines… just like I looked before the first time I regenerated. A perfect replica of how I used to be, of how he looked when I first started to hallucinate him there…

"Shadow?"

"The doctor was able to disable the devices the professor used on us. There should be no more hallucnations of aliens or urges to kill. Unless, of course, it's fun." Shadow grinned, that wild grin I remembered wearing only once, the one that came to define him. He stuck his nose up in the air a little.

"Shadow," came Harold's voice from afar, "Disabling the chips did some damage to our mainframe. Rouge could use a hand fixing it."

"Right. Sorry, Sonic. Duty calls. I guess you really aren't the ultimate life form, taking so long to recover."

He huffed and walked away.

"Not to sound like him," I asked, grinning even as I felt my eyebrow raise, "but what the hell?"

Eggman laughed maniacally, but it didn't have the edge it usually did. I'd never heard him sound so happy. "He has no idea. I copied the code off Grandfather's microchip, used GUN's primitive brain scanning to glean some of your memories of being him, added in a little of Gamma's source code, and voila! A piece of the most glorious acheivement in my grandfather's history will live on forever, even after I finally put an end to you. And hopefully, now, no one will mistake the two of you for one another. You're different colors now, after all. "

Tails rolled his eyes, grinning.

"Is this really a good idea?" I asked.

"Probably a better one than a suicide run into Mad Space," Tails quipped, glaring at me.

I glared back at him a little, but I couldn't help but smile through it. Still, there were so many questions to ask, and I was afraid if I didn't get to them while everyone was in the same place, I wouldn't get my answers.. "Eggman… how did you convince GUN to let them use their mainframe? Are you even going to be able to get out of here?"

"I didn't convince them of anything." He smirked, his gray eyes glinting in the fluorescent light. " How do you think I've been able to stay under their radar all this time? Harold is family, has been ever since I intercepted the letter he wrote my father about Maria." He paused a second, smiling a shit-eating grin, letting the implications sink in. Somehow, given how much I had to fight Eggman, the idea that Harold had been helping him from inside GUN all along didn't really surprise me. Eggman must have decided I didn't really follow what he said, becuase then he added, "I'll slip out the back door during a shift change, and no one else is the wiser." He watched my expression for a moment. He must have been unimpressed with what he saw or something, becuase he suddenly put his glasses back on. I wondered if I'd ever see his eyes again, instead of those mirrored blue shades.

"So.. you're really fifty years old?" Amy asked me. Her voice slipped into a purr as she added, "I guess that means some day you'll be robbing the cradle." She reached over and touched my chest, and this time it didn't remind me of Maria.

Despite the pain it caused, I rolled my eyes, and I think I saw Tails do the same. As I gently pushed her hand away, Tails did what any good friend would do: he changed the subject. "That does raise a lot of questions. You told me you were fifteen. That's a thirty five year difference…"

"I'm fifteen this time around. I'm usually good for about thirty." I was about to ask to explain later, but Eggman jumped in to my rescue.

"The original Shadow was engineered using Chaos and the chao as a pattern. Chaos is effectively immortal, but chao are not. Most chao die after five or so years. However, a chao that is well cared-for, motivated to stay, will go into a coccoon and emerge as an egg. The resultant chao retains most of the previous chao's memories, but can develop in dramatically different ways."

Eggman kept going about the evolution of chao, turning to a computer terminal and typing into it. No doubt he was looking up information to explain even more details. Tails and Amy both looked at me, and we all rolled our eyes in unison. Give a nerd a question, and he's gonna want a dissertation.

"Oh, don't roll your eyes at me," he snapped, not bothering to glance back at us. "I don't know about you, but I would really rather Sonic regenerate if old age gets him before I do, and the only way that's going to happen is if you two fools take proper care of him."

Amy and Tails both giggled, and I chuckled. "Gee, Eggman, I'd almost think you cared."

"Of course not. I had to agree to this for Harold to cover my exit," he glanced back at me, looking over his spectacles. "What do you take me for, some kind of hero? Now shut up and go back to sleep, so I can lecture your friends."

For the first, and so far last, time in my life, I did exactly what Eggman told me to do. I closed my eyes, and dreamed of banana sundaes in Westopolis with Tails and Maria. I haven't dreamed of her since.

* * *

**Author's Note:** We're not done yet! A short epilogue will be posted within moments of this chapter, and that's the end of the story. Just click that arrow to finish up, and thank you for reading!


	12. Epilogue: Cool Edge Day

**Epilogue: Cool Edge Day**

Sonic groaned as daylight filtered in through the ice. He quickly sat Chip down as the change washed over him, his body shrinking, limbs stiffening. Teeth receded back into his jaw, and fur shrunk back into his spines. With a brief howl, he collapsed back into the shape of a hedgehog, pain in his green eyes.

Chip fluttered before him, flying close to his chest. "Wow… so why did it still hurt after they stopped the microwhatsit?"

"Oh, I got better when the swelling went down. The microchip was hurting my brain when it was turned on." Sonic rubbed his temple. "Eggman and Tails found a way to turn it off for good with programming, they call that bricking it. But the actual microchip is still there. It takes up space. So if something causes pressure to build up inside my head, it makes me feel bad long before anybody else would, and takes longer for me to feel better. I think that might be part of why it hurts me to change so much. About the only real drawback of the werehog, I guess."

"Really?" Chip blinked at him, cocking his whole body to the side in the air.

"Well, I guess I get kinda moody, but I'm not too bad, am I?"

"Nah. And…" Chip put his finger to his lips, thinking, eyes rolling up. "And you talked about regenerating? How does that work?"

"I'll have to introduce you to my chao, so you understand. When I get old, which happens to me faster than it does to normal people, I go into this coccoon thing. I come out young again, and different. I've been getting lighter every time. I'll probably be a real light blue or silver color next time. Last time I got about 30 years between, and I took good care of myself, but I don't know if I can last longer. The key's having good friends helping me out." He grinned. "I'm not worried about that one."

"Wow… so you're like, immortal! How long can you keep doing that?"

"I don't know, buddy. I don't know. Only one way to find out." Sonic climbed to his feet. "But we have Emeralds to fix and people to save if I wanna make another 15. You ready?"

"Sure!" Chip flew a little bit ahead. "Oh, but Sonic, will you tell me about your other adventures some other night? Oh, and can I meet Shadow after we fix all the continents? And your chao? Please?"

Sonic grinned. "Sure buddy. But you gotta try and catch me, first."

He laughed and dashed ahead, chuckling as Chip shouted after him.

* * *

**Author's Note: **Thank you so much for sticking this out with me! I am so flattered that some of you chose to finish the story, and I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Now that everything out published, I am happy to answer questions, discuss changes, and accept more comprehensive feedback.

Now, some of you may want more. Some of you may be wondering, but what about Shadow? I can answer both questions with the same tidbit.

Next _Sunday, June 16th, _I'll be posting an alternate epilogue to this, a story called "Shadow Surpassing Shadow." Like this story, SSS takes its name from a Shadow story path. It details what happened after Shadow left Sonic in the infirmary. It was also designed to be more or less accessible to people who haven't read my story, but have played _Shadow_... and assume the Lava Shelter endings are true. If you aren't happy with this ending, that one may make you happy. That'll go up next week.

The following **Friday, **June 21st, I'll be posting the first chapter of my longer comedy piece, "Leave it to Me." Leave it to Me is a simple story about a grocery shopping trip gone horribly, horribly wrong. It's not exactly a sequel to this, but it does deal with some of the same themes, as its title suggests. I can't even do comedy without throwing some depth in, alas.

Leave it to Me has twelve chapters, and should be on Fridays through September. Then I have a brief sidestory to that, which I'll post the week following. Hopefully, by mid September, I'll have finished the project I'm currently drafting, a sequel to my crossover "Blue Tint" whose working title is _Sonic and the Fallen King._

Thank you all, again!


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